On what could be the first of many Monday mornings with no NFL action (outside of the courts), I thought I would chime in here to give readers an update on where we stand as a company.

I’ve said many times over the years that I’m not exactly a businessman. I took zero business classes in college, and while I do regret that now, I’m generally not that interested in business-related things.

However, while the fantasy industry has been re-invented several times and many companies have come and gone, we’re still here doing the exact same things we were doing in 1995 (admittedly, it was basically only me back then). Through 2010, my company has been in business for 16 years, and we’ve grown in each and every one of those years. So I’m doing something right. Yes, I was fortunate enough to grab onto an industry that has been very popular very early on, but over those 16 years there have been many businesses supposedly run by “businessman” that have gone under.

Basically, my approach has been a conservative one. I could have gone for the gusto and gotten in bed with some investor/venture capital people – and I’ve been approached by [...]

This past week was a pretty tense week for all of us here at FantasyGuru.com. While we remained convinced the 2011 NFL season, at least in some form, was not  in jeopardy, things were looking quite hairy for a moment there mid-week, and also later in the week.

We’re certainly not out of the woods yet, and we’re trying to resist the urge to assume it’s all going to work out this next week or two, it certainly seems as if enough momentum has been created to get a new CBA done this month, possibly even by the end of this week. But again, the negotiations do still seem fragile and the two sides reportedly still have a lot of work to do, so we have not put the champagne on ice just yet.

I do think there will be a 2011 season, and I’m more confident in that right now than I’ve been all year, but that still has to come to pass. What I’m really hoping for is a quick resolution this month, so we can get rolling with our free agency reviews and NFL draft previews (which we’re going to do regardless of what happens). I just want to [...]

First of all, I would like to give big ups to you. That is right, you. It seems you clearly understand we are bringing things up to a new level this year, and by doing so we’re creating some speed bumps along the way. But ultimately, as they say, it’s “all good.”

For example, I know there are a lot of people who took a good amount of time to enter their custom scoring systems into MyGuru. Well, if you did, they have all been wiped out and you have to start again.

While that sounds like a buzzkill, there’s a good reason for it: we’ve completely redesigned the thing. I had a vision of what it should be, and our programmer Jeff Mitchell, who is in fact the man, got it done.

So head over and check it out. Yes, you do have to create your teams again, but you’ll find it’s much easier and faster to do now. I’m really happy with the layout of it all, and it looks so much better. The older version was, admittedly, confusing. This new version is very straightforward and intuitive. Everything is done by team now, but if you don’t want to add your [...]

As I said in a previous post, I am not exactly great in terms of planning site enhancements, but as anyone in this kind of business (or anything tech-wise) can appreciate, when you think something’s going to take a month, it’s probably going to take 2 ½ months. And as I write this, there has yet to be a single preseason game played, so we’re not incredibly late on our 2010 improvements and enhancements (and several of them were rolled out months ago).

I wanted to remind people that very soon we’ll be rolling out a redesign of MyGuru. This is going to be WAY better in terms of ease of use, functionality, and aesthetics. HOWEVER, it will require us to clear out everyone’s pre-set scoring systems, teams, etc. It’s the only way to make it happen. But the good news is you’ll find that adding and removing players (which was cumbersome before) is a breeze. It’ll all be worth it, trust me.

In addition, I hope to introduce our new fantasy game next week. It’s an in-season game, so there’s no huge rush, but I’m really excited about it. We’ve polled people for three years to see if they’d be interested [...]

I would not exactly say that I am the best in terms of planning, so I can be behind with some developmental stuff, and I certainly am this year. But better late than never, and since it’s only August 1st, we’re not that late. Bottom line, I’m always committed to improving our offerings, and I’m taking that to a new level in 2010, so it’s mostly “all good.”

We do have a few more interesting things coming down the pike very soon, including a weekly salary-cap contest that we will have this year with low entry fees and large cash prizes (stay tuned for details on how to sign up for all 17 weeks of the NFL season) and a really cool GRAND PRIZE, and a redesign of MyGuru hopefully completed this week (it’s way better and easier to follow).

But right now I’d like to “soft launch” here on the blog the new software package we’ll be offering this year. I know this has been an area we’ve been lacking in, so this year we’ve teamed up with a major industry player in this realm. Here’s more information on the software.

Draft Analyzer Introduction

We’re excited to roll out new draft tool [...]